


Start Where You Are

by lucymonster



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Side Rey, F/M, Seduction to the Dark Side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 22:38:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18748498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster
Summary: When Rey falls to the dark side, her landing is unexpectedly soft.





	Start Where You Are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladylapislazuli](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylapislazuli/gifts).



'You keep telling me I don’t understand,' says Rey.

They’re sitting cross-legged in a room with black walls and almost no furniture. It’s where Kylo practices his meditation, apparently, which explains the tattered Sith scroll hanging in pride of place above the mantle.

Rey’s legs are cramped from staying folded so long. Kylo says he sits like this for at least an hour each day, feeling himself at one with the Force. The only thing Rey feels at one with is her sore sitting bones. She gets it. She knows the Force is the glue that holds the universe together, it flows through everyone, it belongs to no one, all of that. But there’s never been much time in Rey’s life for religious ritual. She can respect the enormity of the Force while putting it to more practical uses, like moving things with her mind and levitating off the ground and convincing enemies to do what she wants.

'Your whole life you’ve been fed lies and half-truths,' says Kylo. 'Where there’s ignorance, there’s prejudice. It was the same with me when I first started training in the Force. What did Skywalker teach you about the dark side?'

'He taught me enough,' Rey says. Even now, even knowing what he’d think if he could see the path she’s chosen to walk, she hates hearing Luke’s name spoken with so much vitriol. But she knows better than to step any closer to that trap. Some misunderstandings cut too deep to be healed. 'He said …' Honestly, he didn’t tell her much about the dark side. It was supposed to be self-explanatory. Everyone she knows has always treated it as self-explanatory. 'The darkness is the corrupt side of the Force. It calls out to us all in different ways, and … and we have to find the strength to resist it.'

'Why?' says Kylo.

'Because …' Just because it’s hard to explain in words doesn’t mean it’s wrong. But Kylo looks smug. 'Alright, fine. Say your bit. Why are you so in love with the dark side?'

He looks so earnest like this. Cross-legged and fervent with his long cloak pooling around him on the floor. Whatever else he might be to the galaxy, Kylo Ren is a believer first and foremost. Well studied. Steeped in ritual. Faithful to the point of fanaticism. Rey never realised how religious he was, when all she saw was him stomping around battlefields with his lightsaber out.

'I’ve felt it for as long as I can remember,' he says at last. 'Since I first realised I could use the Force. There was this anger. This pain, this confusion, this frustration. Like something was under my skin trying to claw its way out. In the Jedi tradition, feelings like that are weaknesses. I tried everything I could to stamp them out but they always came back, stronger every time.'

'So the dark side is … what? An outlet?' When Rey lost her temper back on Jakku, she used to take her staff to the badlands and work out her aggression on the nearest piece of shipwreck. No world domination required.

'It’s more honest,' Kylo says. 'More balanced. What the Jedi were so afraid of was a normal part of sentient life. Everyone has darkness inside them. Instead of suppressing it and blaming yourself, the dark side teaches you to use that darkness. To call on all your pain and rage and passion and grow stronger because of them. You and I are the same. I’ve felt it in you. All those parts of yourself that you try to get rid of.' He swallows. 'On the path I follow, you’re already fine the way you are.'

Despite Rey’s best efforts, her pulse is speeding up. There’s something about the way he’s looking at her – like he did in Snoke’s throne room, right before she made the decision that changed her life forever.  _ Her  _ decision, no one else’s. But old habits are hard to leave behind. A lifetime’s worth of distaste for the mythical dark side of the Force is hard to replace with the receptive interest Kylo seems to expect from her.

So she watches quietly as he pulls something from inside his sleeve. It’s a small black dagger, decorative and razor-thin, not much good against anything larger than a sand-rat. He offers it to her without comment.

'No, thank you.'

'I’m trying to answer your question,' he says, impatient now. 'Take it and cut your hand.' He looks puzzled by her hesitance. Like the fact that she doesn’t self-injure on command is some kind of eccentricity.

Curious despite herself, and annoyed by the look Kylo’s giving her, Rey takes the blade. There’s no good reason to go along with this. But Kylo’s zeal is like a hypnotic force. Carefully, she traces the blade across her palm. It takes her blood a few moments to find its escape route. It wells up slowly, bubbles of bright red on pale skin.

'Now what?' Rey asks.

'Let it sting,' says Kylo. 'Focus on it, and feel the Force flow the pain.'

Rey closes her eyes. Reaches out. The Force is there waiting for her. It feels … just like it’s always felt, the same Force she touched on Ahch-To, only closer and keener and somehow, subtly, a bit more real. A bit more immediate. Like it’s drawn to the tiny wound where flecks of her life blood meet the open air.

And it’s cold. Not slimy and sick like the air beneath the ancient temple, but clean and refreshing like a damp cloth on fevered skin, or an evening breeze after a scorching day.

'The Force is in every part of you,' Kylo says. His voice is low, weighed down by reverence. 'You don’t have to purify yourself – there’s nothing in you that the Force rejects. Give the dark side all your suffering and weakness, and let it give you back courage and strength. Let it take you in when no one else will.'

Rey opens her eyes. The sting has faded; the blood is already congealing in the cut. 'I’ve felt this before,' she says. She hated it. Feared it. Promised herself she’d never let it in again, and yet now here she is.

'I know.' Kylo reaches out to take the knife back, and for an awful, dizzying, beautiful second, Rey finds she doesn’t want to let go.

**Author's Note:**

> With apologies to Pema Chödrön, who probably never expected to see her teachings so boldly misinterpreted for purposes of Star Wars villain apologia.


End file.
